Chemistry News

Chemistry Department News

The Chemistry Department enjoyed another active and exciting year, highlighted by the promotion of Professors Enrique Peacock-López and John W. Thoman, Jr. to the rank of Associate Professor effective 1 July 1995 and the reappointment of Professors Dennis M. Dalton and Andrew S. Koch for four more years at the rank of Assistant Professor. One of our graduating seniors, Amy M. Gehring, and two alumni, Devorah C. Goldman '93 and Thomas H. Wintner '93 were awarded National Science Foundation Fellowships to pursue graduate studies in chemistry and biochemistry. An incoming senior, Jennifer K. Hood, received a Pfizer Summer Research Fellowship and worked with Professor Dalton during the summer of 1994.

We are pleased to welcome a new faculty member to the Department. During the summer of 1994, Dr. Birgit Koehler, a physical chemist, joined the faculty at the rank of Assistant Professor. Dr. Koehler, a graduate of Dartmouth College, obtained her Ph.D, from Stanford University and comes to us after postdoctoral work at the Stanford Research Institute International and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research area is in atmospheric chemistry, with particular emphasis on reactions in the stratosphere and the troposphere. The Department also welcomes back Professor Hodge Markgraf who is returning to full-time teaching and research from his nine-year stint as Vice President of Alumni Relations and Development and head of the Bicentennial Fund Drive.

A generous grant from the Marmot Foundation to the Department has been used for travel to conferences, purchase of equipment, and for faculty-student functions.

This year we continued to participate in the lecture program under the sponsorship of the Class of 1960 Scholars Program. Four distinguished scientists were invited to campus to meet with our students and present a seminar. Professor Peter Chen of Harvard University, Dr. Fred Vinick '69 of Pfizer Inc., Professor Richard Schrock of M.I.T., and Dr. Toni Ceckler '79 of the National Institutes of Health were the 1960 Scholars speakers this year. Nineteen students were selected by the faculty to be Class of 1960 Scholars and to participate in the seminar program. Each lecture includes a preliminary meeting of the Scholars with a Chemistry Department faculty member to discuss some of the papers of the seminar speaker; attendance at the seminar/discussion; and an opportunity for further discussion with the seminar speaker at an informal reception or dinner. The students selected this year were:

1960 Scholars 1993-94

Mark Cordes
Heather Cox
Rajiv Doshi
Jebrell Glover
Elizabeth Gray
Grant Harbison
Jonathan Hargreaves
Jennifer Hood
Elizabeth Juang
Noory Kim
Matthew Miller
Jonathan Nitschke
Anne Normand
Andrea Patten
Daniel Patterson
Jean Marie Pesola
Catherine Shawl
Christopher Song
Donny Wong

During the final week of classes, a number of awards were presented to chemistry students for outstanding scholarship. Professors Chang and Thoman presented the CRC Award to Susan Gurgel '97 as the outstanding student in the general chemistry course, and Professor Dalton presented the CRC Award to Mark Russo '97 as the outstanding student in the advanced general chemistry course. Professor Richardson awarded the Harold H. Warren Prize to Justin Cole '96 in recognition of his being the outstanding student in introductory organic chemistry, Professor Koch awarded the American Chemical Society Polymer Division Award for excellence in introductory organic chemistry to Tenno Tsai '96, and Professor Park presented the ACS Analytical Chemistry Undergraduate award to Elizabeth Gray '94. At the annual senior Honors Colloquium, Professor Chang announced the American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Award for sustained scholastic excellence to Amy Gehring '94, and the American Institute of Chemists Student Award for outstanding scholastic achievement to Joseph Sadighi '94.

At Class Day activities before graduation, the John Sabin Adriance Prize was awarded to Amy Gehring as the senior chemistry major who maintained the highest rank in all courses offered by the Department. Also during Class Day, Jon Fielder was the recipient of the Leverett Mears Prize in recognition of outstanding scholastic achievement, admission to graduate study in the medical sciences or to medical school, and designation by the faculty of the Department as showing outstanding promise. The James F. Skinner Prize for achieving a distinguished record in chemistry and showing promise for teaching and scholarship was presented to Barbara Roe.

Professor Chang continued as Chair of the Department. He was an invited speaker at the 47th Annual Convention of the Texas Junior College Teachers Association in San Antonio, Texas in February. Professor Chang continues to serve on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Committee in chemistry. The fifth edition of his introductory chemistry text was published in 1994.

Assistant Professor Dalton continued his research directed towards the synthesis of new metal- carbonyl complexes. Summer researchers Rajiv Doshi '95, Amy Gehring '94, and Doron Greenbaum '94, worked on various aspects of the project. Rajiv and Amy presented their results at the Organometallic Summer Undergraduate Research Group (OSURG) conference held at Holy Cross College. Amy and Doron continued their research during the year as Honors students. In conjunction with her Pfizer Fellowship, Amy and Professor Dalton presented their findings at Pfizer Central Research in Groton, Connecticut, last Fall. Jennifer Hood '95, will continue this research as part of her Pfizer Summer Research Fellowship in Synthetic Organic Chemistry. The Research Corporation awarded a grant for $28,000 in support of this work, which will continue during the 1994-95 academic year while Professor Dalton is on leave. Professor Dalton was also awarded a grant from NECUSE for the 7th annual OSURG conference, to be held at Williams in 1994. In addition to his research, Professor Dalton taught Inorganic Chemistry, the advanced section of General Chemistry, and the Department's Ford Course.

Professor Evans was on assistant professor leave for the year in Williamstown, doing research supported by the NIH on the active site of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. His research efforts were aided by Adam Carroll '94 and Steven Saunders. A collaborative research project was also begun with Professor Charles Lovett of the Chemistry Department and Dana Tomasino '94 (biology major) to identify the DNA binding site of the Bacillus subtilis SOS repressor. Professor Evans also began a collaboration with Professor Nancy Roseman of the Biology Department to identify and characterize the nucleotide binding domain of the Vaccinia virus dUTPase protein. Professor Evans attended the seventh annual symposium of the Protein Society in San Diego, and served as a reviewer for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Biochemistry and as an ad hoc reviewer for the National Science Foundation.

Professor Lawrence Kaplan's book Controlling Our Reproductive Destiny: A Technological and Philosophical Perspective was published by MIT Press. Written with Professor Rosemarie Tong of Davidson College, this book blends the science and technology with the ethics and legal issues associated with the reproductive-controlling and reproductive-aiding technologies.

He presented lectures and conducted workshops on his continuing work to promote forensic science as a vehicle for science education. The lectures included: "Forensic Science: A Case- Oriented Approach to Science Education" presented by invitation at the Division of Analytical Chemistry Symposium "Analytical Award for Excellence in Teaching-Student Empowerment through Team Role-Playing and Cooperative-Learning" at the 206th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago, Illinois in August 1993, and "Forensic Science-Crime in the Chemistry Curriculum" presented by invitation at the Gordon Research Conference on "Innovations in the Teaching of College Chemistry" in Oxnard, California in January 1994. A workshop, "Chemistry and Crime: From Sherlock Holmes to Modern Forensic Science - Experiments for High School Science Courses" was conducted on the Williams campus during spring break for a number of science teachers from Western Massachusetts. It was sponsored by the Consortium for the Improvement of Math & Science Teaching based at North Adams State College.

During August 1993, Professor Kaplan, representing the Chemistry Department, was the host of the 55th Summer Conference of the New England Association of Chemistry Teachers. The theme of the conference was "Chemistry in Art Conservation," and was particularly suited to the Williams campus with the resources of the Williams College Museum of Art, the Chapin Rare Book Library, and the Williamstown Regional Art Conservation Laboratory. James Martin of the Conservation Lab coordinated the workshops, tours and field trips and Dr. Anne Skinner, Ms. Michele Goodhue, and Ms. Nina Raoof '94 assisted with the workshops. Professor Kaplan conducted a workshop on "Color- Forming Couplers and Modern Color Photography."

Professor Kaplan published a paper on forensic science, "Forensic Science: Crime in the Chemistry Curriculum." in the Journal of Chemical Education, 70, 574 (1993).

This year Assistant Professor Andrew Koch has been kept busy teaching Advanced Organic Synthesis, CHEM 303, and the second semester of Introductory Organic Chemistry, CHEM 202. After his first year teaching a class of 117 students, he is looking forward to attending both the 24th ACS Northeast Regional Meeting in Burlington, Vermont, and the Council on Undergraduate Research 5th National Conference in Lewiston, Maine. Professor Koch continued his activities for the Sigma Xi Science Day this year, offering middle school children hands-on demonstrations of how the world around us can be explained by chemistry. He also served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Williams Sigma Xi Club for 1993-94.

Progress on Professor Koch's ongoing research in two different areas was advanced by two Honors students this year. Barbara Roe '94 worked on the preparation of per-pyridinium benzoquinones, a unique class of potential oxidizing reagents for organic synthesis currently under investigation in this department. Barbara started her work with Professor Koch last summer with funding provided by the Council on Undergraduate Research. She continued on this year and finished with an Honors thesis entitled "Work Toward the Synthesis and Isolation of Three Per-pyridinium Benzoquinones". Jon Fielder '94 worked on Professor Koch's project on conjugated polymers containing a metal binding site. He successfully prepared a charged ligand bound to ruthenium metal for investigation of alternative doping of electrically conducting polymers. His work utilized the efforts of Neel Gandhi '94 last summer. Neel worked out conditions for the preparation of a precursor ligand to the one needed by Jon for binding to ruthenium. Jon forged ahead through numerous obstacles to develop the procedures needed to obtain the sought after ligand, and finished with a thesis entitled "Synthesis of Novel Charged Ruthenium-Polypyridine Complexes". In addition, Benny Soffer '94 also worked in Professor Koch's laboratory for the Fall semester and Winter Study Period. Benny worked on molecular weight determination of polymers by gel permeation chromatography which was a continuation of work performed by Anne Normand '95 last summer. Anne and Benny also worked on the preparation of starting materials for the synthesis of electrically conducting polymers. Professor Koch has also continued to serve as a reviewer for the Journal of Organic Chemistry.

Professor Charles Lovett began his first year as Director of Bronfman Science Center and Chair of the Science Executive Committee. In this capacity he was heavily involved in the development of preliminary plans for the new science facility. He continued to serve as Chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program. He also served on the Executive Board of the New England Consortium for Undergraduate Science Education and on the Advisory Committee for Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), a national reform movement to strengthen undergraduate science and mathematics. In September, he co-chaired, with Professor Raymond Baker, a session on "What We Teach" at the PKAL Symposium "Preparing for the Future: Exploring International Collaborations and Considering the Global Context for Strengthening Undergraduate Science and Mathematics."

Professor Lovett continued his research on the regulation of DNA repair in the bacterium Bacillus subtilis , supported by the National Science Foundation. During the past year, this work involved the efforts of several Williams students. Last summer, Brad Smith '94 and Amy Prieto '96 worked on various aspects of this research as full-time research assistants. During the academic year, he directed Brad Smith and Dana Tomasino as Senior Honors students and Jennifer Fievre '94 as an independent study student. Professor Lovett published two papers, co-authored with former Honors students Kerry Cho and James Woodruff, in the Journal of Bacteriology: "Purification of an SOS Repressor from Bacillus subtilis" and "Analysis of the SOS Inducing Signal in Bacillus subtilis using Escherichia coli LexA as a Probe." He presented some of these results as part of the Faculty Lecture series in March. In November, he attended the 17th International Nature Conference entitled "Structural Biology: The Shape of Things to Come." In April, he attended a conference entitled "Recent Advances in Macromolecular X-Ray Structure Determination." Professor Lovett continued to serve as an ad hoc reviewer of research grant proposals for the Molecular Genetics Division of the National Science Foundation.

Last summer, Professor Lovett taught the Chemistry lectures component of the Williams College Summer Science Program for Minority Students. During the summer he also developed, with John Fei '93, a new biochemistry laboratory program which he introduced during the Fall semester in the introductory biochemistry course, Structure and Function of Biological Molecules. He and Professor David Richardson developed and taught two new courses in the spring semester, Toxicology and Cancer and Enzyme Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms. Professor Lovett served on the Advisory Committee for the Williams College Global Studies Project and is developing an introductory course in Global Studies with Professors Raymond Baker (Political Science) and Mark Taylor (Religion) to be introduced next year.

Assistant Professor Lee Park joined the Department in July of 1993, after completing a year and a half postdoctoral work at IBM's TJ. Watson Research Center. She taught CHEM 103, Concepts of Chemistry, Advanced Section, in the Fall and CHEM 304, Instrumental Methods of Analysis, in the Spring. Her research concerns the synthesis of metal-containing liquid crystalline compounds and she worked this year on setting up research equipment necessary for the synthesis and characterization of air-sensitive materials. Independent Study student Jon Wongsurawat '94 worked with her this year in getting the project started; Jon was joined during the month of January by two other students, Jebrell Glover '95 and Amy Baughcam '97, who worked on different aspects of the same project while enrolled in CHEM 022, Introduction to Scientific Research, during the Winter Study Period. Jebrell will continue the work he began during January this summer, supported by a Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Summer Research Fellowship. Also working in Professor Park's lab this summer will be Susan Gillmor '96.

Professor Park co-authored a publication this year entitled "Synthesis of Five- and Six- Coordinate Alkylidene Complexes of the Type Mo(CHR)(NAr)[OCMe(CF3)2]2Sx and Their Use as Living ROMP Initiators or Wittig Reagents," Organometallics, 12, 759 (1992). She also presented an informal "brown bag" talk to science faculty, "Liquid Crystalline Phases and Properties" and participated in the Sigma Xi Science Day in May, offering a series of demonstrations and a short talk ("Polymers Everywhere, from Slime to Soda Bottles") to elementary school students.

Assistant Professor Enrique Peacock-López continued his research in complex dynamical chemical and biochemical mechanisms. During the Fall semester, he spent a considerable amount of time setting up the group's computer facilities. At the present time Professor Peacock-López' group has a SUN Sparc 10 server with the following software packages installed: INSITE, MATHEMATICA and XVGR. Using these new computational facilities, which have been funded by NSF and Williams College, they have continued their work on the complement system. Complement is a mechanism of the immune system composed of approximately 20 plasma proteins which function as enzymes or binding proteins to cause cell lysis. Of the complement's initiation paths, the alternative pathway is an antibody independent mechanism. Their minimal model of the alternative pathway of complement represents the first modeling work of this kind performed on this system. The minimal model has shown dynamical complexity never seen before in other theoretical analyses of the complement. In particular, Professor Peacock-López and his students have been studying its chaotic behavior. For this purpose they have constructed its bifurcation diagrams with the help of the software package INSITE.

The minimal model does not take into account that host cells have membrane proteins which prevent C3b from forming C5 convertase on the cell membrane, thus preventing the Membrane Attack Complex to destroy the cell. During the past academic year, Elizabeth Juang '95 has been studying a variation of our minimal model. The new model includes recognition of self and non-self. This recognition is relevant to the understanding of autoimmune diseases. Ms. Juang has analyzed the new model with the help of the software package PLOD.

In addition to his research activities, Professor Peacock-López taught the Fall and Spring semesters of Physical Chemistry where he has increased the use of MATHEMATICA as a tool to solve time-consuming numerical and symbolic calculations in physical chemistry. Also, he offered the Winter Study course Science on the Road. Finally, Professor Peacock-López' effort in teaching physical chemistry to children continued. This year, Professor Peacock-López gave demonstrations to second and fourth graders at the Williamstown Elementary School and to the North Adams YMCA junior high science camp students.

Associate Professor David Richardson continued his research efforts directed at the synthesis of monoterpenes with anesthetic activity that are derived from plants used in Chinese and Japanese folk medicine. Honors student Nina D. Raoof '94 concentrated on this project this year. Working together with Tanya Schneider '94, his other Honors student, he also continued his research aimed at isolating the chemical components responsible for the toxicity of Southeast Asian blow dart poisons. A report of recent collaborative work with Professor Jerrold Meinwald, of the Cornell University Department of Chemistry involving synthesis of optically pure inhalational anesthetics was accepted for publication and will appear in the Journal of Organic Chemistry. Professor Richardson also served as a reviewer for the Journal of Organic Chemistry.

In addition to his research activities and serving as the College's Premedical Advisor, Professor Richardson taught the Fall semester of the Department's introductory organic chemistry sequence. He team-taught two courses with Professor Charles Lovett during the Spring semester. These upper- level courses included Enzyme Kinetics and Reaction Mechanisms and a new course called Toxicology and Cancer. The new course was developed with support of the College's new Global Studies Program. During July he taught the Chemistry laboratory portion of the Williams College Summer Science Program for Minority Students. In March, he was invited to attend a special colloquium at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D entitled "Chemical Ecology: The Chemistry of Biotic Interaction." In June, Professor Richardson attended the 11th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Chemical Ecology in Syracuse, New York.

Dr. Anne Skinner attended the 7th International Seminar on Thermoluminescence and Electron Spin Resonance Dating held in Krems, Austria in July 1993. She presented a paper, "ESR Dating of Terrestrial Quaternary Shells". Catherine Shawl '95, was a co-author on the paper, which has been accepted for publication in Quaternary Geochronology. Dr. Skinner is currently collaborating with an archaeologist in Florida on the problem of dating PaleoIndian flints.

Also in the summer of 1993, Dr. Skinner organized one of the workshops at the NEACT Conference, "Chemistry in Art Conservation", held on the Williams campus. She led a group of secondary school and college teachers in the use of indigo dyes as an example of oxidation- reduction processes.

In January 1994, Dr. Skinner offered a WSP course, Science and Archaeology, part of which required participation in a hands-on project. This proved very attractive to a number of non- science majors who had no other exposure to laboratory work at Williams.

Dr. Skinner is also safety consultant for the campus. In that capacity, she published a paper, "OSHA Lab Safety Standard: Implementation at an Undergraduate Research Institution", in the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly in September 1993.

Assistant Professor Jay Thoman was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure effective July 1995. He continued research on the fluorescence quenching of gas-phase nitric oxide, supported by the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and the American Physical Society Laser Science Topical Group. With students Mike Furlanetto '93, Jon Fielder '94, Carolyn Flesner '94, and colleagues from Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA, he presented results at the Gordon Conference on Molecular Energy Transfer and at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego. With Chu Ri Shin '94 and Geology Professor David Dethier, he investigated the sources and extent of chromium and arsenic in fish taken from the local environment. He also served as a reviewer for the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund.

Professor Thoman taught CHEM 101, Concepts of Chemistry, for the first time this year. In the Spring, he continued to teach the chemistry portion of the science seminar, Introduction to Environmental Science. With Heather Stoll '94 as a co-author, he discussed this course, and research that has stemmed from it, in an invited talk at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego. Extending his interests in the environment, he also developed a new introductory-level course, Environmental Chemistry.

CHEMISTRY COLLOQUIA

Chu Ri Shin, Doron Greenbaum, Tanya Schneider, Amy Gehring, Bradley Smith, Carolyn
Flesner, Barbara Roe, Jon Fielder, Nina Raoof, Joseph Sadighi, Jessica Gallina, Adam Carroll, Jon Wongsurawat, Dana Tomasino
Senior Research Projects

Professor Brian Bahnson
Williams College
"Investigating Hydrogen Tunneling in Horse Liver Alcohol Dehydrogenase by Site-directed
Mutagenesis"

Professor Dana Carroll
University of Utah
BIMO Class of 1960 Scholars Speaker
"Biochemical Analysis of DNA Gymnastics in Large Living Cells"

Dr. Toni Ceckler '80
Heart, Lung & Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health
"Dynamic and Chemical Factors Affecting Water - Macromolecular Proton Magnetization
Transfer"

Professor Peter Chen
Harvard University
Class of 1960 Scholars Speaker
"Laser Spectroscopy of Radicals, Biradicals, and Carbenes"

Dr. Thomas Feist
E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
"New Ceramic Materials for Electronic Packaging"

Dr. Birgit Koehler
University of Colorado, Boulder
"Polar Stratospheric Clouds - A Key Culprit in Ozone Depletion"

Professor Gerrit Lodder
Gorlaeus Laboratories, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
"The Photochemistry of Vinyl Halides in Nucleophilic Solvents"

Professor Hodge Markgraf
Williams College
"Dediazoniation of Aryldiazonium Salts"

Dr. Donald R. Mattison
Dean of Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
Joint with Center for Environmental Studies
"Temporal Issues in Reproductive Risk Assessment"

Professor David Park
Williams College
Joint with Physical Department
"Edward Morley: Ether, Argon, and Immortality"

Dr. Christina Redfield
University of Oxford
"NMR Studies of Interleukin-4"

Katherine Queeney '92
Harvard University
"Cold Molecules in a Hot Place"

Philip Schein, M.D.
US Bioscience
BIMO Class of 1960 Scholars Speaker
"Biochemical Pharmacology of Nitrosourea Anticancer Agents"

Professor Richard Schrock
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Class of 1960 Scholars Speaker
"Living Polymerization by Well-Defined Transition Metal Catalysts"

Dr. Eileen Spain
University of Colorado, Boulder
"Understanding the Chemical Bonding of NiCu and the Collision Dynamics of Ca + He with
Orbital Pictures"

Professor Joanne Stubbe
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BIMO Class of 1960 Scholars Speaker
"Ribonucleotide Reductases; Proteins with Radical and Suicidal Tendencies"

Dr. Allen Taylor
Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University
The Charles Compton Lectureship
"From the Purple Valley to Beantown: How Chemistry 404 and 100F May Lead to a Way to
Delay Cataract and Retinopathy"

Dr. Fred Vinick '69
Pfizer Inc.
Class of 1960 Scholars Speaker
"The Discovery of Substance P Antagonists: Finding the Needle in the Haystack"

POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF CHEMISTRY MAJORS

Ariel E. Anderson:

Gordon M. Bussard: M.D., Thomas Jefferson Medical School

Adam S. Carroll: Work in biochemistry for a year, then graduate school in biochemistry

Jon F. Fielder: M.D./Ph.D. program at Baylor College of Medicine

Nadege J. Fievre:

Carolyn S. Flesner: Photography work in Denver

Jessica B. Gallina: M.D., Mount Sinai Medical School

Neel Gandhi: Work in Admissions Office, Williams College for one year, then to Dartmouth Medical School

Amy M. Gehring: Ph.D. in Biochemistry (Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program), Harvard Medical School

Allison T. Gibbs: Medical School

Doron C. Greenbaum: Work at M.I.T. in Center for Cancer Research for two years, then entry into a Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. program

Shaw C. Henderson: Applying to medical school next year

Sukit C. Malaisrie: M.D., University of Maryland School of Medicine

Scott R. Martin:

Neil Mehta: Medical school

Patricia Park: Applying to medical school this year

Nina D. Raoof: Volunteer at a refugee hospital in Mexico

Michael J. Reis:

Barbara A. Roe: Mercer Management Consulting, New York City, for one year, then graduate school at University of California, Berkeley

Joseph P. Sadighi: Ph.D. in Organometallic Chemistry, M.I.T.

Tanya L. Schneider: Teaching or research position

Carl R. Shaw: M.D., Baylor College of Medicine

Chu Ri Shin: M.D., The Ohio State University Medical School

Rajnish Tandon:

Vaew J. Wongsurawat: M.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine


Modified by: bbabcock
Modification Date: Friday, March 3, 1995